from Guzmán el bueno (1876) to Tabaré (1913). His series of nine operas, two of them in only one act, are an ambitious body of work for Spanish composers of his time. After a long polemic which delayed its première, Los amantes de Teruel (1889) amounted to its definitive consolidation, and was followed by proposals along very different lines, such as the Wagnerian in Garín (1892) for the Barcelona Liceo and the veristic in La Dolores (1894) for the Madrilenian Teatro de la Zarzuela. His last works, despite being tied to a strong nineteenth-century tradition, contain undeniable interest, such as Raquel (1900), based on the famous romantic drama, Farinelli (1902), composed for the failed Teatro Lírico project, Tabaré (1913), set in America, and Don Gil de las calzas verdes (1914), based on a comedy by Tirso de Molina. Zarzuela At the same time, he approached the art zarzuela with unequal success. His output, while less than that of his contemporaries Ruperto Chapí, Gerónimo Giménez and Manuel Fernández Caballero, is of great quality, given the variety of genres which he tackled. He made several attempts at composing in the zarzuela grande genre, both in a more traditional line than previous generations in works such Cuatro sacristanes (1874), ¡A los toros! (1876), ¡Bonito país! (1877), El campanero de Begoña (1878) and Los amores de un príncipe (1881), and at the end of the century in the Circo de Parish, with El clavel rojo (1899) and Covadonga (1901), where he adopted more modern procedures, within the limitations of the genre. His greatest fame came from the género chico, especially La verbena de la Paloma (1894), one of the most famous zarzuelas of the Spanish repertoire, the most spectacular works view in Buenos Aires, although he later composed many others which were not as successful. Orchestral output On the other hand, he wrote symphonic music with a singular insistence, at a time in which in Spain, orchestral ensembles barely existed. He composed and conducted numerous works for the Sociedad de Conciertos, of which he was chief conductor from 1885 to 1890. A result of this were his three symphonies (1872, 1883, 1905), revealing a strong assimilation of Beethoven's compositional techniques. His most successful works were those with a Spanish character, albeit in an Alhambristic vein –such as En la Alhambra (1887)– or a more danceable one, as in Escenas andaluzas (1894). During his last